How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Part of reading is:
oKnowing conventions
oRecognizing conventions
oAnticipating resultsWhen a person introduces a topic, then digresses onto other topics it doesn’t matter what examples, as soon as you see a couple of them you recognize a pattern. oYou know the author is coming back with an application of those examples to the main topic. Conventions in stories/novels:

oTypes of characters
oPlot rhythms
oChapter structures
oPoint-of-view limitations
Separation of professional reader from a crowd:
oMemory
oSymbol
oPattern
“Professors read and think symbolically.”
oEverything is a symbol of something until proven otherwise. Literature is full of patterns.
oLife and books fall into similar patterns.

What does a quest include?
oA Knight
oA dangerous road
oA Holy Grail
At the least:
oOne dragon
oOne evil night
oOne princess
A quest consists of five things:
oA quester
oA place to go
oA stated reason to go there
oChallenges and trials en route
oA real reason to go there“The real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason.” oMore often than not, the quester fails at the stated task. oQuesters go on the quest because of the stated task, mistakenly thinking that it is their actual mission. A quest is educational.

“The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.”
oThat is why a quester is generally is always young, inexperienced, immature, and sheltered.

What is communion?
oWhenever people eat or drink together.Most readers relate communion to Christianity but nearly every religion has ritual involving the coming together of people to share a meal. Not all communions are holy or have religious meanings.

oLiterary versions of communion can be interpreted in various ways.

Real World
oBreaking bread with others is an act of sharing and peace, because you’re breaking bread instead of heads. oCommunion is normally taken with those who close are to you. Why?
o“The act of taking food into our bodies is so personal that we really only want to do it with people we’re very comfortable with.”

Foster’s Chapter: “Now, Where Have I Seen This Before?” (Ch.5; pg. 28)

There’s only one story.
oStories grow out of other stories.
oPoems grow out of other poems.
Influences from other literary works.
oDirect and obvious
oIndirect and subtle
Intertextuality
oThe ongoing interaction between poems and stories
oDeepens and enriches reading experience
oBrings multiple layers of meaning to text
Picking up on elements in a literary work such as parallels and analogies will cause your understanding of the novel to deepen, become more complex and meaningful.

Foster’s Chapter: “It’s Greek to Me” (Ch. 9; pg.64)

Kinds of myth?
oShakespearean
oBiblical
oFolk/ Fairly tale
These three kinds of myths work as:
oSources of material
oSources of correspondences
oSources of depth for the modern writer
oEnhancers and enrichers to the reading experience
Biblical myth covers the largest range of human situations oEncompasses all ages of life
oAll relationships
oAll phases of the individual’s experience
Myth is a body of story that matters.
“Greek and Roman myth is so much a part of the fabric of our consciousness, of our unconscious really, that we scarcely notice.” Example: Homer used primal patterns known to humans.
Four great struggles of the human being:
oWith nature
oWith the divine
oWith other humans
oWith ourselves

Foster’s Chapter: “Is That a Symbol?” (Ch. 12; pg. 97)

Symbols
oPeople expect symbols to mean one something in particular. oSome have a relatively limited range in meaning.
oMany...

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...stronger. A major theme is sin, relating easily to the evilness of sex in a puritan society.
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Frankenstein’s monster is scared by outside society as much as they are of him, but in this way, the un-accepting nature of society is strengthened.
______________________________________________
Chapter 5 – Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before? Chapter Summary:
-There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. All books borrow situations, ideas, and themes.
-There’s only one story. “When a new work is created, it is set among the monuments, adding to and altering the order.” –T.S. Eliot
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_____________________________________________________________________________________________
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...﻿“How To ReadLiteratureLike A Professor”
By: Thomas C. Foster
1) “Always" and "never" are not words that have much meaning in literary study. For one thing, as soon as something seems to always be true, some wise guy will come along and write something to prove that it's not.” pg.8
2) "there's no such thing as a wholly original work of literature" pg.20
3) "myth is a body of story that matters" pg.39
4) “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.” pg.7
5) “Here’s the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just any something, something in particular. Exactly. Maximum. You know what? It doesn’t work like that… so some symbols do have a relatively limited range of meanings, but in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing.” pg.55
6) “Most professional students of literature learn to take in the foreground detail while seeing the detail reveals. Like the symbolic imagination, this is a function of being able to distance oneself from the story, to look beyond the purely affective level of plot, drama, characters. Experience has proved to them that life and books fall into similar patterns. Nor is this skill exclusive to English professors.” pg.4
7) “A novel is a made-up work about made-up people in a made-up place, all of which is very real.” pg.32
8) “Education is mostly...

...Cameron Evans
Mrs. Elrod
AP Literature and Composition
19 Aug 2012
Observations for How to ReadLiteratureLike A Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Introduction: How’d He Do That?
1. Literature has a set of codes and rules, a set of conventions and patterns.
2. Conventions are used, observed, anticipated, and then fulfilled.
3. The three things that differentiate a professional reader from those less experienced are: memory, symbol and pattern.
4. A “Faustian bargain” is like making a deal with the devil.
Chapter One: Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)
1. Every quest has five components: a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges/trials en route, and lastly, the real reason to go there.
2. The real reason for a quest never involves and/or includes the stated reason.
3. The real reason for a quest is always for self-knowledge.
Chapter Two: Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion
1. Communion is whenever people eat or drink together.
2. Communion doesn’t have to be holy.
3. Life and death are acts of communion.
Chapter Three: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
1. Vampirism can mean the literal vampire action as well as: selfishness, exploitation and refusal for respect.
2. The typical “vampire story” consists of an older figure that has some seductiveness about them to hide their...

...How to ReadLiteraturelike a Professor
Chapter 1: We learn the basics of a quest in a book or novel. The author says a quest can be any kind of journey. He uses a kid, named Kip, who runs to the store to pick up some bread for his parents. Along the way he sees the girl he asked out, a bully named Troy, and his ’68 ‘Cuda.
When we hear or read the word “quest”, we think of an epic hero coming from a faraway land, who faces an obstacle, trials, a protagonist, and love story. To have a quest you must have: (a) a quester, (b), a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go, (d) Challenges and trials, (e) a real reason to go there. For Example: In Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief. (a) the quester is Percy Jackson, (b) Hades Realm, (c) so he can free his mother from his clutches and prove he didn’t steal Zeus’s lightning bolt , (d) He battle a god, goes on mini quest, and getting used to being the son of Poseidon.
Chapter 2: In this chapter he talks about the act of eating as a group in a book. In most books we read. We usually see the characters bond, talk about a trouble past, talk about future plans, or some other purpose.
Basically food in a book/movie means: loyalty, kinship, desire, and sex/sexuality. We see this every time we see a hero or group of them eat. Not all of them at once, but maybe 1, or 2. We also go out to eat on dates to tell people about ourselves....

...1. Memory, symbol and pattern affect the reading of literature by separating the professional reader from the rest of the crowd. Memory of what happened allows you to enjoy later scenes of a book of a movie, yet this does not necessarily improve the experience of popular entertainment. When reading you have to assume everything is a symbol until proven otherwise. Its good to think of things as existing as themselves while simultaneously also representing something else. Patterns are everywhere. While reading you take in detail yet also look at how the details have an underling pattern This means that you have to distance yourself from the story and look beyond the basic story.
2. The five aspects of the quest are; 1. The quested, 2. A place to go, 3. A stated reason to go there, 4. Challenges and trials, 5. The real reason to go. A quested means a person going on a quest but in most cases that person doesn’t know that they are going on a quest. A place to go and a stated reason to go there means someone tells the protagonist to go somewhere and do something. The real reason to go means that the real reason for a quest is to always find self knowledge.
5.1) Our quester: a young child just out of high school. She is not happy with her parents decisions so she decided to make decisions for herself.
5.2) A place to go: she escapes to NY.
5.3)A stated reason to go there: She escapes to New York because that is where her sister escaped to many...

...bold). This means that every community owns it’s own type of myth belief system. Myths can be in different forms in literature, paintings, and music. All of these forms tell a story, even though it is difficult to notice the story it is trying to tell. The literature form of myths is used by modern writers because the situations between the myths and the modern literature writing is very much alike. These comparisons are parallels, but how the myths are used and written in the modern world are ironized. A lot of the important events in novels can be factored down to myths.
Chapter 10: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow
In this chapter, Foster explains the deeper meaning to the whether. Even though whether is just considered another description of the setting, it also sets the mood of the event taking place. For Example, rain sets the mood of being renewed. There is a depth perspective to rain, the rainbows it casts which is believed a sign from Noah that he won’t flood land ever again from the biblical tale, the new awakenings and hopes it brings in the spring, and the chills of death coming near it brings. Despite the different moods it sets, it is also mysterious like fog. Fog is used more for a confusing mood, but can also be considered mysterious like rain. It also is described as a murky, cluttering settings. For snow, it has its moderately similar things like rain....

...﻿Blake Allen
How to ReadLiteraturelike a Professor
Foster
Allen
Introduction
memory
symbol
pattern
These basic examples of literary analysis can be found in most literature from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Paper town.
Every Trip is a Quest
“a quester, a place to go, a stated reason, challenges and trials en route, and a real reason”
real reason is always self-knowledge
In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo goes to the Capulet party because his friends dragged him along but the real reason was so that he could meet Juleit.
Nice to eat with you
“whenever people eat or drink together, it's communion”
commonality of everyone is food
...and death/life
In The Great Gatsby when Tom Buchanan takes Nick Carraway out to drink with his friends, we learn just how pubic Tom's life really is.
Nice to eat You
Vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people
Ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires
older figure representing corrupt values; virginal female; stripping her youth, energy, virtue; continuance of life for the old male; death/destruction of female
In The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth can be considered a vampire haunting Hester. He wants revenge for his wife’s betrayal. He is a scholar and uses his knowledge to disguise himself as a doctor, intent on discovering and tormenting Hester’s anonymous lover instead of...